Pursue the Commons in the words“上”(shang)and“下”(xia)

“上”and“下”，two of the most common words in daily life . We always say“上班(shàng bān: on duty) ”、“下班(xià bān: off duty)”，“上车(shàng chē: get on)”、“下车(xià chē: get off)”,“上厕所(shàng cè suǒ: go to bathroom)”，but we never say“下厕所(xià cè suǒ: get out the bathroom)”. If that confuses you, then let’s study these two characters in greater detail:

First, Let’s look at the background of the two characters:

“上”’s written character in different forms:

“下”’s written character in different forms:

These characters are all based on the pictographic character a horizontal line”. If you add one more stroke above the line, you get the “the up 上”. Conversely, adding a stroke below the line brings you to “the down 下”. Look at these characters. They are almost inverted versions of each other. In dictionary definitions, many “items” are simply opposites. So you can try to start understand them like antonyms.

(5) About taking part in some orderly activities

E.g. Tā měi tiān zǎo shàng bā diǎn shàng bān， xià wǔ wǔ diǎn xià bān
他每天早上8点上班, 下午5点下班。
Every day he goes to work at 8am, and gets off work at 5pm.

Apart from these relative meanings，sometimes they are not opposites, and this can often confuse us:

I: In some phrases, like “上街(shàng jiē: go into the street)”“上网(shàng wǎng: get on the Internet)”“上厕所(shàng cè suǒ: go to the bathroom)”, “上”means “go to ”, some places. But“下”doesn’t have this usage.

E.g. Nǐ qù nǎ er le？ Wǒ shàng jiē le
你哪去儿了? 我上街了。
Where did you go? I went into the streets.

II In some phrases, like “下海(xià hǎi： go into business)”“下基层(xià jī céng： get into grassroots)”，“下”means “get into” ;in these phrases like “下面条(xià mian tiáo： cook noodles)”“下饺子(xià jiǎo zi： cook dumplings)”“下厨(xià chú： cooking)”，you will figure out “下”means “cook”. But“上”can be used in this way too.

Michael (马志 Ma Zhi)，majors in Teaching Chinese as Second Language ,Who has already taught Chinese 3 years in University. Now he is working in the Confucius Institute in Croatia.His academic study fouces on Second Language Acquisition and Cross-cultural Communication. He is also good at training students for HSK Examinations.